


New Orleans

by EmmytheEwok



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, It's the honourable thing to do, Nat has to break up with Clint, but it still hurts like motherfucking hell, there's a shitload of swearing because thats how I write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:38:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2220978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmytheEwok/pseuds/EmmytheEwok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is very angsty and very very crap and I am very sorry for it's shittyness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Orleans

Clint, to tell the truth, had never been to New Orleans before. Well, he may have flown over it or driven through it, but he'd never actually stopped at a bar along the way.

Oh, and what a huge fucking mistake that was.

He was currently so drunk that the edge of his vision was begging to mist slightly, curling round the dancing figures and drunk patrons of what must have been his fifth bar. And, being this drunk gifted him temporary amnesia, which was a requirement after the botched mission they'd just had.

A child had died right in front of him, and there was nothing he could have done.

Slamming another shot back to banish the though, Clint began to look for Natasha. He planned to simply yell for her until she agreed to go- they really needed to leave now if they wanted to actually get to their plane in the morning-when his gaze snagged on the very woman he was after.

In the arms of someone else. In the arms of someone else, fucking dancing.

Letting all the alcohol he'd consumed set fire to his blood, and, more importantly, his temper, he didn't even think before marching over to her and slamming the other guy straight in the face.

***  
Natasha didn't even let him fully into the door before she let rip. On the whole ride home, she'd just sat in stony silence, the only sign of her anger being her clenched jaw. “How. Fucking. Dare you.” With every word, she took a step closer, and Clint found himself backed against the wall without a weapon in sight. He took an uneasy glance at her gun belt.

“Tash-”

“No.” Her voice was deadly calm, but her eyes could have set him on fire. “You don't get to speak, you fucking Neanderthal.”

“Please-”

With that, all the anger just seemed to drain out of her. With the day they'd had, it was like she just couldn't waste the emotional energy on being angry, and had just settled with a strange mix of disappointed and resigned.

“Clint,” Her voice had turned into a mere whisper now, and even though they were practically touching, she couldn't have seemed further away than in that moment. “You said, you said if one of us thought that us... being together effected the way we work-”

“Tash, we weren't working-” he began to protest desperately, hands clutching at the air in between them.

“No, its not that, Barton.” Clint's throat began to tighten with panic. “It's become clear to me tonight that I don't feel as...strongly... about you as-”

“As I do about you.” 

Natasha turned away, hiding the tears spilling down her face. For godsake, she was an ex-soviet assassin that had killed more people than she could care to count, be she turned into a bloody twelve year old when dumping her boyfriend. Behind her, she heard Clint collapse onto the ground, and quickly took her exit. “I'm sorry, Clint.” She managed to whisper while she fled the room.

***  
Out in anther bar, yet again, Natasha had reached a state of blind drunkenness that meant that her whole body tingled with numbness.

But her heart still fucking hurt. 

Not with the programme of drinking to forget, her brain kept replaying the lie she'd told him, over and over, constantly on repeat. “I don't feel as strongly about you as you do about me.”

It's not like she could just blurt out that she'd been dancing with the guy because she knew what Clint would do. It's not like she could turn round and say she needed an excuse to get angry and break things off.“I don't feel as strongly about you as you do about me.”

It's not like she could tell him that it was all his fault the damn kid died. 

“I don't feel as strongly about you as you do about me.”

He'd been too fucking concerned with the noises if pain she'd made on the radio to check the hallway for fucking bombs. He'd just run straight to where she was, kissing her ferociously when he found her still alive.

“I don't feel as strongly about you as you do about me.”

He'd held her, saved her from the guy sneaking up behind her, mocked her perfect track record because goddamnit they were in fucking love. 

But they couldn't be, or more kids would die. More parents would loose their children, sisters lose brothers and families shatter. 

Natasha laughed bitterly as she downed another shot. She was trying to be motherfucking honourable, but it just felt like yet another knife in the gut.

“I don't feel as strongly about you as you do about me.”


End file.
